Clouded with snow

Composer's note: “Walter De La Mare’s poem Clouded with snow paints an atmospheric picture of late afternoon in winter and I was drawn to the image of a bleak yet beautiful landscape with the faint glow of a watery sun setting over fields of white. I attempted to create a sense of wintery stillness through the ‘oo’s’ of the opening bars with their slightly bare harmonies, out of which the melody emerges. The tune then weaves its way through the upper and lower voices, with the texture thickening to illustrate the shedding of the sun’s rays in verse two and the drawing in of the dark in verse three. At the close, the slower tempo, together with the gentle dissonance and long melisma on the word ‘floating’, leaves us in an atmosphere of moonlit calmness.” - Becky McGlade -